The Year We Make Contact 20 Years of Media-Scape Dedicated to Pierre Schaeffer Exhibition of video, computer and sound installations, photography and holography, performances, screenings, concerts Zagreb, 8–29 October 2010 CURATORS AND ORGANIZERS Media- Scape exhibition (8–29 October 2010) and performances (8 and 9 October 2010): Ingeborg Fülepp and Heiko Daxl Curatorial and technical assistance: Iva Kovač and Martina Vrbanić Press: Iva Kovač Technical assistance: Mihael Pavlović Concerts and film programs (8 and 9O ctober 2010): Nikša Gligo, Seadeta Midžić, Daniel Teruggi, Dalibor Davidović (Jocelyne Tournet) Press: Bruno Bahunek Media facade screenings: Tihomir Milovac Special thanks to Ana Vuzdarić (guided tour), Luka Kedžo and Daniela Bušić (video documentation), and all the artists and friends who have contributed to the successful realization of the Media-Scape 2010 exhibition, performances and screenings I LN COL ABORATION WITH Croatian Association of Visual Artists, Zagreb / Hrvatsko društvo likovnih umjetnika (HDLU), Zagreb. Director: Gaella Gottwald Museum of Contemporary Art / Muzej suvremene umjetnost (MSU), Zagreb. Director: Snježana Pintarić PARTN ER EVENT I nternational conference: “Pierre Schaeffer: MediArt”, 6–7 October 2010, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art / Muzej moderne i suvremene umjetnosti (MMSU), Rijeka. Director: Jerica Ziherl. Assistant: Vima Bartolić CONE F RENC INITIATORS AND COORDINATORS N ikša Gligo, Seadeta Midžić, Daniel Teruggi, Dalibor Davidović, Jerica Ziherl PULSE B I H RS Croatian Association of Visual Artists (HDLU) Trg žrtava fašizma BB, HR-10000 Zagreb For the publisher: Josip Zanki Heiko Daxl & Ingeborg Fülepp GbR (Media in Motion), Berlin-Zagreb H DLU BOARD CATA LOGUE EDITORS Josip Zanki, Chairperson; Tomislav Buntak, Heiko Daxl and Ingeborg Fülepp Fedor Vučemilović, Vice-chairpersons; Gordana Bakić Vlahov, Ivan Fijolić, De SIGN AND LAYOUT Karaman Design Koraljka Kovač Dugandžić, Anita Kuharić Smrekar, Members COE V R DESIGN Heiko Daxl H NDLU ART COU CIL Željko Kipke, Chairperson; Nikola PRINT Albaneže, Vanja Babić, Gordana Bakić Cerovski d.o.o., Zagreb Vlahov, Tomislav Buntak, Zlatko Kopljar, Berlin/Zagreb 2011 Iva Körbler, Matko Vekić, Koraljka Kovač, ISBN: 978-953-6508-64-8 Members Contents Introduction Ulrich Polster/Christine Scherrer .............51 Preface ....................................5 Nika Radić ................................53 The Subject Between Traditions and Collective Jakob Schaible .............................55 Memory ...................................7 Goran Škofić ...............................56 Opening Performance Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag .....................57 Henry Stag ................................59 Maren Strack ...............................9 Yukihiro Taguchi ...........................60 Exhibition Tobias Trutwin ............................61 bcd cybernetic art team .....................13 Branka Uzur ..............................63 Vladimir Bonačić ...........................14 Armin B. Wagner ...........................64 Paulo C. Chagas and Lynn Lukkas .............16 Concerts and Film Screenings Andy Cameron .............................18 Hommage to Pierre Schaeffer ................67 Costantino Ciervo ..........................20 Decade of Feverish Movement and Gathering ..69 Dunja Donassy .............................22 Alen Floričić ...............................23 Performance Darko Fritz ................................24 Junko Wada / Hans Peter Kuhn ...............71 Thomas Gerwin/Wolfgang Spahn ............26 Media Facade Giulia Giannola ............................28 Heiko Daxl ................................73 Sibylle Hoessler ...........................29 Dieter Jung ................................31 Short History of Media-Scape ................75 Timo Kahlen ...............................34 Sponsors ..................................80 Zlatko Keser ...............................36 Hans Peter Kuhn ...........................37 Antal Lux .................................38 Malcolm Le Grice ...........................40 Mia Makela ...............................42 Dalibor Martinis ...........................43 media in motion: Heiko Daxl/Ingeborg Fülepp ..44 Enes Midžić ...............................47 Magdalena Pederin. 48 Ivan Picelj .................................49 Enes Midžić: Schaeffer Portrait Mobile No. ,1 1972 Preface T he idea was conceived back in 2007, at the Media-Scape symposium held in Novigrad/Cittanova in Istria. The title of the symposium and exhibition was “(Per)mutations” and I was invited to give a lecture of my choice. As I had continually been dealing with Schaeffer’s theories for the previous twenty years (due both to personal and professional interests), I proposed the lecture “Permutations of Sound into Music: Pierre Schaeffer’s Idea of ‘Abstractness’ and ‘Concreteness’ of Music”. There were no musicians in the audience, which consisted mostly of media artists. For many of them Schaeffer’s name itself was a novelty. However, both Ingeborg Fülep and Heiko Daxl, the founders and inspirers of Media-Scape, decided to delve more deeply into Schaeffer’s concepts. And so it all began! Seadeta Midžić, who used to work with Schaeffer in Paris, joined the group. Jerica Ziherl, director of the Museum Lapidarium and Gallery Rigo in Novigrad, moved to Rijeka, where she became director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Media-Scape moved to Zagreb. Therefore we decided to divide the content between Rijeka and Zagreb. There are further important details that justify this tribute to Schaeffer in Croatia. In the sixties he had been very close to Zagreb Music Biennale, an international festival of contemporary music. He had also been invited to deliver several lectures at the Zagreb Television and had published some texts in the jour- nal Bit International, dedicated to information theory and new aesthetics. I think Mrs. Midžić will explain this connection more precisely in her text. Not to forget: I think that in 1994 Mrs. Midžić conducted the last interview with Schaeffer at his home, which was later broadcast by Zagreb Television as a homage to Schaeffer, following his death on August 19th, 1995. Moreover, Ivo Malec, our esteemed composer, is Schaeffer’s very important follower. One might even say that Schaeffer is present in Croatian music as much as Malec is its representative. Nikša Gligo, 2010 info.hazu.hr/niksa_gligo_en_biography INTRODU CTION 5 Photo: media in motion The Subject Between Traditions and Collective Memory by Heiko Daxl and Ingeborg Fülepp, 2010 “The cult of info-technology underestimates the role of experience and pre-existing knowledge in the pro- cessing and generation of new knowledge.” – Jules Marshall in Mediamatic Although the necessity to reconsider traditional terms is becoming ever more urgent today, avoiding them through redefinition would be not only absurd and perilous, but above all naive. However, in most cases neither can we be guided by them. Subsequent events are not independent from each other. Events of the past in a way cause the events of the future. Time runs in its own direction and absorbs everything that happens. The feeling that there is a sequence results from our inner association between past and new events, even though there may be no linear causality. It is likely that causality exits only as an individual ex- perience. The past is seen as fact, as unchangeable. On the other hand, the future has potential, it is a possi- bility. Events of the future are open and characterized by not yet known or experienced facts. “Aboriginals, when tracing a song line in the sand, will draw a series of lines with circles in between. The line represents a stage in the Ancestor’s journey. Each circle is a ‘stop’, ‘waterhole’, or one of the Ancestor’s campsites.” (Bruce Chatwin: The Song lines) If events are facts at any time, generally speaking what we have is only a possibility to explore the undiscovered and to open our consciousness to it. This actually cre- ates nothing new, but it links facts in a different way. Does this not provide opportunities for free struc- ture, for conception and creation in the very sense of the word? Today we know that we are not observing the world in an objective way, but that we are always a part of the observation. The determining linear principle of classical causality is no longer helpful in achieving an understanding our present world. It is often replaced by a non-linear auto poetic philosophy. Such new systems of think- ing acquire and keep their identities, even though their components are constantly changing or interlink- ing. Talking does not provide sufficient explanation through the mechanistic function of its parts. “The function of an auto poetic awareness is the observing and listening to the reality, in order to rethink it in the mirror of one’s mental repertoire and recombine it with inner plans and images. So concepts of the world and cultures can progress, e.g. reflections of inner concepts in which me move and act. ‘We’ are the human society, on the one hand created by ourselves, bur on the other integrating us in its network. By creating our culture we are creating our conditions as well, and ultimately the structure of our future.” (Ronald Fischer). Science is gradually transforming the conventional view of our universe into a complex system of interde- pendencies which is not only beyond a layman’s grasp, but challenges even the absolute proof of math- ematics and physics. Random, chance, dynamic, erratic